come up with a more improved version of what he or she wants to hear. the clock radio keeps going off. we keep hearing sonny and cher saying, i've got you babe. that's "hardball" for now. "politicsnation" with al sharpton starts right now. thanks, chris, and thanks to you for tuning in. tonight's lead, mitt romney dancing as fast as he can. do you remember back during the primaries when mitt romney assured republicans that he is severely conservative? it didn't ring true back then but, hey, he was trying. now with the election 29 days away, mitt romney is on the move as a moderate. but can he be credible in this new roll? a brand new gallup poll shows president obama leading by 5

points. meanwhile, a new pew research poll shows romney leading by 4 points. this race is tightening. things are moving, gist like mitt romney. suddenly he loves covering people with pre-existing conditions and suddenly mr. romney is ignoring the fact that his tax plan is a give away to the rich. the only problem, that's not the mr. romney who's running for president and this weekend newt gingrich, one of his top surrogates let the cat out of the bag. >> standing on the stage with you in arizona, this is what mitt romney said. number one, i said today we're going to cut taxes on everyone across the country by 20%, including the top 1%. mr. speaker, you mentioned that your opponent, mitt romney, had a problem with being dishonest and the primary of my question is, was he dishonest when he said that? >> i think it's clear he

changed. >> clearly he's changed. another romney surrogate even admitted it. >> that's all you're seeing here. it's very typical. we we strong conservatives understand that. it's campaign strategy. >> it's typical. just campaign strategy. that's all you're seeing here. very typical. but here's the thing. the more he moves to the middle, the more hypocritical he looks. this weekend, moderate campaign with none other than congressman allen west. yes, the same allen west who thinks the white house is cooking the job numbers. the same allen west who is said there are communists among democrats in congress. how is that for moderate? and just listen to him on medicare. >> i can tell you this, when paul ryan is elected as vice president and i'm elected

president -- >> now, mr. romney made those claims under a banner that says protect and strengthen medicare. did he forget that he signed on to the plan that would kill medicare as we know it? you know the one his running mate created. so this is the great mitt migration to the middle, the move from severely conservative to just severely brazen. the question is, can this new mitt move past the smell test? joining me now is congresswoman january kakowski and michelle cottle, correspondent for "the daily beast ". thank you both for joining me tonight. >> thank you. >> congresswoman, let me go to you first. newt gingrich admits governor romney has changed. how will he answer this in the next 29 days? >> well, we have to double down and demand the truth and who do

you trust becomes the real question now but you can't going from saying we shouldn't hire more teachers to saying, i love teachers. we need more. you can't say you're against the dodd/frank bill and then say, oh, yes, wall street needs regulation. and you can't say that you're supportive of medicare when your plan is essentially to get rid of medicare as we know it, to end it and turn it into a voucher program that won't even keep up with inflation. we have to make sure that the truth gets out and we have to demand the answers from mitt romney. who are you? the president was right when he said, who was that guy that showed up on the debate night. >> michelle, isn't that the real point, despite some surrogates saying it's typical, isn't this too far toward the opposite side of what he represented in the primary? >> well, this is what we were

told by his conservative opponents in the primary that we could expect and if you talk to republican voters in the base during the primary time, this is what they were worried about. of course, the primary goal for republicans is to beat obama no matter what and this is the candidate they've got. at this point they are going to swallow and vote for him anyway. but this is not a surprise. we all knew the etch-a-sketch would be shaken but we thought it would be shaken earlier than this. >> one of the things that governor romney tried to eject into the first debate is the bipartisan image but the new york times came out over the weekend saying that his tenure as governor was anything but bipartisan. quote, democrats complained he ignored, assaulted, or opposed him. he vetoed legislation initiatives. he exercised budget line items, a remarkable 844 times.

i mean, that's an incredible amount of times. >> well, i had the opportunity to be with some legislators from massachusetts who said, look at the vote that is going to be in massachusetts for president of the united states and you get a sense of just how bipartisan mitt romney was. he is going to lose massachusetts overwhelmingly because as the governor -- first of all, his record was all wrong and it was third worse in job creation so he's inventing his record but he's also inventing the bipartisanship. the legislators saw none of that. >> now, michelle, when you say that we were warned that he was going to move to the middle, the problem that he has is so many things remind people of who he was, like the infamous tape of him talking about 47%. so no matter how much he moves, he's got to continue to answer

and be haunted by this tape. watch this. >> it's not elegantly stated, let me put it that way. i have a very effective campaign that's doing a good job. not everything i say is -- that's the real percent that people care about. i said something just completely wrong. >> so he went from, it wasn't said well to, it was completely wrong because he can't get away from people seeing him, himself saying, 47% of the country basically are moochers and won't take responsibility. he can't get away from his own image. >> he thought on some levels that it would fade away faster and it did and a lot of people predicted it wouldn't be such a big deal early on. gradually he realized he was going to have to directly address it. in the wake of his debate performance, he took an opportunity to say, i was wrong. but i think a lot of people are

obviously not going to be willing to let it drop. they are going to be asking him, well, what do you mean you were wrong? did you not mean it? were you just pandering? all of the hypocritical accusations are going to continue going forward and it's going to be a thing with the obama people, who is this guy, can you trust him, and which mitt romney are we going to be seeing tomorrow, next week, next month, that sort of thing. >> congresswoman, i heard a commentator say earlier that he's a man that comes out of a private sector and he's used to saying whatever it takes to close the deal. well, that may work in business but will that work with voters if they feel you are not authentic, no core beliefs in anything, can they close the deal with someone that they don't believe really believes anything? >> well, this lack of core belief is certainly an issue but the worse in politics, reverend, is lack of respect. when you disrespect people and that's what we saw in that

authentic moment of mitt romney when he was talking to all his rich friends, that he has content, disrespect for people, anybody who has any -- relies on government in any way, medicare, social security, veterans benefits, we're talking about active military. the disrespect that he showed is something that i think all voters ought to take with them to the voting booth. >> michelle, quickly, let me ask you -- i started with citing one poll has the president up, another romney up. what do you think 29 days out? >> serve kind of waiting for the shoe to drop. the president had a bad debate but then the job numbers came back really well. the media narrative is waiting to see what the next big thing is going to be. maybe it's going to be joe biden. we don't know. >> january schakowsky, michelle

cottle, thank you for joining us. >> thank you. the president has been fired up for days and today we know exactly why. good luck, governor. >> we put two wars and tax cuts on a credit card and now governor romney wants another $5 trillion in tax cuts that he can't pay for? not if i've got anything to say about it. plus, a tea party group accused of hovering and getting into faces is under fire. congressman cummings is demanding answers. he's here exclusively. and live from new york, it's me, our friends at "snl" took on yours truly and the msnbc team. oh, yeah, i've got something to say about it. you're watching "politicsnation" on msnbc.

>> it's a mile below the earth so for him, speaking to colorado was like being flown two miles into the air and having to give a speech in outer space. an intense burning sensation i woke up with this horrible rash on my right side. like somebody had set it on fire. and the doctor said, cindie, you have shingles. he said, you had chickenpox when you were a little girl... i said, yes, i did. i don't think anybody ever thinks they're going to get shingles. but it happened to me. for more of the inside story, visit shinglesinfo.com

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have you joined the "politicsnation" conversation on facebook yet? today our facebook family still had a lot to say about the big bird controversy. sandra says, big bird pretty much symbolizes the difference between the two parties. i agree. and donna says, the last thing america needs is to have big bird on the unemployment line. this recently released photo of the first lady joking with the president was a hit, too. karen says, you can tell that michelle makes him laugh.

we want to hear what you think, too. head over to facebook and search "politicsnation" and "like" us to join the conversation that keeps going long after the show ends. ke care of legal matters. wouldn't it be nice if there was an easier, less-expensive option than using a traditional lawyer? well, legalzoom came up with a better way. we took the best of the old and combined it with modern technology. together you get quality services on your terms, with total customer support. legalzoom documents have been accepted in all 50 states, and they're backed by a 100% satisfaction guarantee. so go to legalzoom.com today and see for yourself. it's law that just makes sense. boring. boring. [ jack ] after lauren broke up with me, i went to the citi private pass page and decided to be...not boring. that's how i met marilyn... giada... really good. yes! [ jack ] ...and alicia. ♪ this girl is on fire [ male announcer ] use any citi card to get the benefits of private pass. more concerts, more events, more experiences.

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uni latterly. mitt romney told the associated press, quote, it's not worth moving heaven and earth and spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person. his weakness on foreign policy has just gotten worse. today, for example, romney gave a speech trying to sell himself as incredible commander in chief but his list of missteps is unprecedented. his disstrous british trip. he was labeled "mitt the twit," calling the operation that led to gadhafi's death a mission

trip and never mind the cold war is over. maybe we wouldn't -- shouldn't be surprised that his foreign policy agenda is a mess. his team includes over a dozen former advisers to president bush. in fact, bush's defense secretary, donald rumsfeld, called romney's speef, terrific, comprehensive speech. our latest poll shows that america's people don't buy romney as commander in chief. he trails the president on that 47 to 39%. and he trails the president by 6% on foreign policy. for decades, republicans have had the edge over democrats when it comes to national security but thanks to this president's strength and romney's weakness, that trend is over. joining me now is richard

wolffe, vice president and executive editor of msnbc.com and an msnbc political analyst and brian, a senior fellow at the american for progress. thanks to both of you for being here. >> thanks, reverend. >> richard, let me start with you. what is the biggest failure in romney's foreign policy attacks? >> the biggest problem mitt romney has is not debating the president, it's debating himself. this is all consistency of a split pea soup. is he for mission creep and won't set an end date. he's on every side of his foreign policy position but even worse than that, even worse than the whole who is advising him question, his basic world view is outlined in his foreign policy speech today is, you're with us or against us. does that sound familiar?

the world is divided into liberty and tire ran knee. it's a more knew wants world, post 9/11 world. if you think they can be divided equally between tyranny. >> listen to this. >> recommit america to the goal of a democratic prosperous palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with the jewish state of israel. >> what struck me about that is in the secret tape that is going public where he taked about the 47%, he that negotiations won't work. let me show you this. >> the palestinians wanting to see peace any way and committed

to the destruction and i say there is no way. you move things along the best way you can, you hope for some degree of stability and recognize that it's an unsolved problem. >> it's romney versus romney. who are the real -- who is the real romney? is he pulled in so many directions that there is no real romney? >> well, i don't think there is a real romney. he's in full etch a tech mode and today's republican party is more divided on foreign policy than it has been in decades. it's interesting that in the speech he gave today, he wanted to sound like george marshal. he sounded a hell of a lot more like george w. bush in terms of his world view. good versus evil and other things. two specific things that highlight that. one, he called for a middle east

nation building czar. that's what he wants you as taxpayers to spend your money on, to do nation building. second, he built more naval ships, ships that the defense department and generals don't even want. so i think a lot of americans have got to ask, yeah, we've got a lead in the world but what in the heck are we doing, proposing that won't make america stronger and safer in the long run and those are the only two specifics that i can see that were really different from what president obama is actually doing. >> now, brian, you've used the word disarray about his foreign policy. what do you mean by that? >> well, he doesn't actually have clear positions on most issues. i think it's reflective of the american party today. you know, you've got a party that essentially says, government spending doesn't create jobs except when it's defense spending but then you have tea party folks saying, we shouldn't be spending anything at all. you have a republican that doesn't know what it stands for on what to do about the middle east and i think it comes through in the candidate's

speech today. he doesn't have specifics about what he would do in syria. he seems to hint that we would go to war there but when pressed on it he doesn't actually say, we're going to go there. so he has a lack of clarity, less than a month before the election, about how he would lead. >> let's talk about that, richard. because i was struck by his statements about syria today when he talked about helping to arm syria's opposition. watch this. >> in syria, i'll work with our partners to identify and organize those member of the opposition who share our values and then ensure that they obtain the arms they need to beat assads tanks and helicopters. >> five people who share our values, what does that mean? and then work to obtain that they have arms? what does that mean? >> well, to be honest, there's no real difference between that and the president's position as well. the question is, how over are

you going to do this? and i gave a, you can defeat assad tank and helicopters by supplying arms to this group of rebels. that's not realistic. if you're going to talk about leadership and america's leadership in the world, you have to admit that syria's defenses are far superior to any of the countries that we've seen toppled so easily, such as libya, for instance. so you can't just assert leadership by saying, i'm going to be your leader. you have to say what you're going to do and how it's going to be different from the leader that you are criticizing. that's what we didn't see from syria or today in what he said about iran either because he talks tough on iran, not clear how anything, anything he's proposed would be anything different. >> and he does this, brian, facing a president who has a strong record on foreign policy. let me show you what the president has been saying. >> four years ago i told you i would end the war in iraq and we

did. i said i'd end the war in afghanistan. we are. i said we'd focus on the people who actually attacked us on 9/11 and today osama bin laden is no more. >> in two weeks, brian, they are going to have the foreign policy debate. how does romney and his disarray, your word, not mine -- though i agree with it -- how does he answer this? >> well, i think he probably continues to do what he does s. use a lot of heavy rhetoric that implies that we're not leading in some sort of way, that we might start a couple more middle eastern wars and replay the playbook that george w. bush used. i get it. i get it that romney has fumbled a lot of foreign policy plays. but to me it seems like a desperation hail mary pass, his speech today and what he's probably going to try to do in

the debate. when you send it up against a president who killed bin laden and dozens of other operatives and then in the middle east we have four leaders that are no longer there, pushed out of office by their own people. we have a pretty strong record that the president is running on and romney a lot of receipt rick. >> richard, brian, thank you for your time tonight. >> thank you. coming up, president obama's offensive started right after walking off the debate stage and insiders say he won't stop now. plus, tea party poll watching group is under fire for intimidation. congressman cummings is fighting back. and new early voting numbers in ohio may spook the state's secretary of state. stay with us. >> so your choice now in november is clear, you can either vote for the guy who got rid of bin laden or vote for the guy who wants to get rid of big

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we're still 29 days away from election day but ballots are being cast across the country at this very moment. this week, california, arizona, and indiana kick off their early voting periods.

they join 34 other states already choosing their next president. in ohio, nearly 700,000 absentee ballots have been requested so far. 30% by democrats, compared to 24% by republicans. that's a positive sign for the president. early voting is a big deal in ohio because of the state's debacle on election day back in 2004 when long lines at polling places prompted some folks to go home instead of casting their ballot. to fix that problem, ohio expanded its early voting program and a majority of those who voted early supported barack obama. the right wing is determined to stop history from repeating itself. leading the charge, this man, ohio's republican secretary of state jon husted. this year, he's fought early

voting hours and block weekend voting and fire election officials who disagreed with him. but on friday husted suffered a big setback. early voting was restored for three days before election day. husted is now reviewing his legal options. but voting suppression isn't just happening in republican legislatures. it's also happening in the street at polling stations. so there's an investigation into voter intimidation. more on that coming up.

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florida. it's just one of the many ways governor romney's boxed himself in. what's he going to say about taxes, health care, regulation? mr. romney's put himself in a box and president obama knows it. with 29 days to go, and you can say governor romney is between barack and a hard place. joining me now is an opinion writer for "the washington post" and an msnbc contributor and margorie, democratic strategist. thanks to you both for being here tonight. >> thank you. >> jonathan, it seems like there's a lot of around mr. romney's policies. >> yeah. absolutely, rev. because we've spent so much time focused on his performance and that's sort of the sugar high from the debate on wednesday but then you start focusing in on what he actually said and there's a lot there. as you said, he's boxed himself in a corner.

you know, for instance, on his tax policy, on the $716 billion that he says the president is cutting out of medicare which is also in his running mate's own budget, just done in different ways, yeah, he's boxed himself in a corner and i think a lot of democrats hope and we've seen on the campaign trail since the debate that the president is pushing back on a lot of things that he didn't push back on during the debate. >> i want to go there, margorie, because i said the night of the debate that i couldn't believe how many lies and misrepresentations were said by romney. but it seems the president now has been very aggressive of politico's assessment that he is aggressive and watch this. >> the real mitt romney has been running around the country for the last year promising $58 trillion in tax cuts to favor the wealthy, the fellow on stage

last night said he didn't know anything about that. my opponent, he's doing a lot of -- a little tap dance at the debate the other night. trying to he's been saying for years. >> when governor romney tried to give us his business advice about the economy and said that we should let detroit go bankrupt, we said, no thanks, we're not going to take that advice. we've reignited an auto industry that's on top of the world. >> he wasn't having a shining moment at the debate. watch this. >> everybody here, incredible professionals, they are such great friends and they just perform flawlely, night after night i can't always say the

same. >> so he joked about his performance but he's going hard on the policies. is that a winning formula, marg? >> absolutely. that's why the president is usually net favorable. even new polls that have come out in the last couple of days have shown romney doing better, even leading obama, he's still net favorable. that kind of looseness that you're seeing from the president on the campaign trail, we're just simply not going to get from romney. that's just not the kind of candidate that he is. when you take all of that together combined with mitt romney who has put himself in a corner not just with fact checkers but his own campaign team that has to walk back his comments every time he speaks -- and even newt gingrich on "meet the press" said he's clearly changed on taxes and his campaign has had to say

repeatedly, we're not really for people with coverage for pre-existing conditions, just people who already have coverage for their pre-existing. so he's inconsistent and inaccurate. the policies that he is selling are unpopular. >> conflicting polls all over the place, what does that mean? >> it means that everyone's all over the place. look, before the debate, rev, the president and mitt romney were in a statistical tie, albeit the president was on top, 49%, 50 prts in some polls, with mitt romney 3 or 4 points behind him but within the different margin of polls. it appears that in one poll, in the pew poll, mitt romney is up against the president and in the gallup seven-day tracking poll, the president is up 50 to 45, if i have mitt romney's number right in that poll. this race has been, is, and will continue to be until election

day a very close race. and so either side can take heart in a poll that shows his or her candidate being on top but, remember, this race is basically tied. >> now, the vice presidential debate, the one and only one, will be be this thursday night and paul ryan, the republican vice presidential nominee, was questioning his weekend on what he was doing to prepare for the debate. here's his response. >> how you feeling about the debate? >> what debate? oh, yeah. i better get ready for that. >> you know, i better get started. you just reminded me. no, it's going well. >> what are you looking for in that debate, marge, on thursday night? >> well, first of all, paul ryan should focus on explaining the math. that's something he dismissed when asked about it on fox news about a week or two ago. >> right. >> so he should now find the time. he said he didn't have the time.

he should find the time to explain the math of his various policies. i want to hear him talk about the 30%, the welfare state and i want to hear why he thinks we should get rid of food for hungry children. i want to know why he thinks that is the key to growing our economy and getting rid of medicare for seniors as opposed to cutting taxes for the wealthie wealthiest among us. >> jonathan, politico suggests that this presidential debate on thursday could really matter and they question which paul ryan we'll see. they said, congressman ryan has a choice to make thursday. either stand by the extreme positions he's been the face of for years and that governor romney has fully embraced or flat out deny their existence as governor romney did in last

week's debate. will the debate matter and which way do you think ryan will go? >> i do think the debate will matter because i'm that ticket between governor romney and congressman ryan, it's congressman ryan who has specifics. he has an actual budget that vice president biden and reporters, quite frankly, can point to to say, in your budget, house budget committee chairman, you propose this, you propose that. where are you now? and the bind that congressman ryan is in, he's not the top of the ticket. governor romney is and governor romney said famously after they were chosen, paul ryan has his plan but i'm the candidate. i have my own plan. paul ryan is going to have to figure out how he can talk about what he believes and not run afoul of wherever governor romney might be on any of these budgetary issues, and especially medicare.

>> it could be very interesting and very important given where we are at this stage, 29 days out. jonathan and margie omera, thank you for your time tonight. >> thank you. a new group intimidating voters at the poll. into plus, the folks at snl brought humor but there's a serious point to be made. that's ahead. [ female announcer ] you can measure the growth of children by the way they clean themselves in the bathroom. try charmin ultra strong. with a new duraclean texture, it helps you get clean. plus it's four times stronger than the leading value brand. and you can use up to four times less. charmin ultra strong.

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we're back with a story of a right wing group accused of intimidating people into not voting. the group is called true the vote. they first made headlines in 2010 when they were investigated by the justice department for allegedly intimidating voters in houston, texas. true to vote were accused of hovering over voters and getting into election workers' faces or blocking or disrupting lines of

voters. for wisconsin governor scott brown and now the group claims it is training a million people to watch the polls in november. who are they? they grew out of a tea party movement in texas and now they've appointed themselves to be the poll police. here's what their elections coordinator said earlier this year. >> for any of you that had seen qualified, capable poll observers in action, it's kind of like driving down the road and looking up in that rearview mirror and seeing that there's an officer of the law following you. >> people exercising their right to vote should feel like the police are watching them? that's offensive and maybe illegal. and now the questions about the true the vote have reached the halls of congress. joining me now is elijia and

launched an investigation into true to vote and in a letter to their president he's demanding information about activities that, quote, may be evidence of illegal voter suppression. he said the efforts could, quote, amount to a criminal conspiracy. congressman cummings, that's for being with me. >> good to be here. >> what concerns you about true the vote? >> i believe that voting is a fundamental right to be exercised by all eligible voters and not to be limited to few as a privilege. and anybody who stands in the way of a person voting is doing something offensive and possibly criminal, what true the vote does, the most recent efforts have been to send letters to local election offices challenging people's addresses.

then mainly zero in on students, african-american, people who would normally vote democratic. they also zero in on hispanics and what they are doing is challenging legitimate voters. as a matter of fact, just this morning, reverend sharpton in the supermarket, i ran into a lady 74 years old who has been voting from the same address for 50 years and now suddenly she's being challenged. and that -- not only do they do these kinds of efforts but the same kind of efforts that you talked to us about earlier, that is intimidating people at the polls. they claim that they are guarding the vote. we know that it's more than that. it's clearly a case of voter suppression. we are a better nation than that. >> they are backed by the tea party, they've sued states for not purging voter rolls and they plan to train one million poll watchers by election day.

>> with the sole intent of intimidating people. people should not have to go to a voting place, reverend sharpton, in fear and to be addressed. and then basically one of the things that this investigation is going to do is we're trying to find out, for example, what kind of information are they basing their challenges on? we also would like to look into how do they select the various places that they are going into poll watches, as you would say. it would be interesting to see whether those are in suburban areas, urban areas? we would suggest that most of them are in urban areas and they have made -- they have business to claim that they are trying to keep the voting process legitimate when, in fact, they are suppress pressing the vote. >> now, it's interesting who they hang around with because tim, the president of the right wing judicial watch, was at the

true the vote event in may talking about obama registering, quote, a food stamp army. and let me show you what he said. >> i feel the obama gang is setting themselves up to steal the elections, if possible. the obama people want everyone to get registered through the department of motor vehicles or public assistance or food satam offices. >> now, this was at their may event. true the vote may have said having a guest saying the president is signing a food stamp army. >> i'm very saddened to hear that statement. i would hope that every single american would want every single american to exercise their right to vote. this is a part of our democracy. i often say that this is a one day, reverend, when the janitor at a company has the same power as the president of that company. that one day every four years.

and so i'm so sorry to hear that comment. but, again, we're trying to -- true the vote has made its self the watch dog. we are hopeful that true the vote by the way of the president has already agreed to come in and provide testimony and documents for us. so we're looking forward to hearing from them. >> i'm out of time but we will stay on this story. elijah coupling, thank you. >> thank you, reverend. coming up, saturday night live takes on msnbc. that's next. begin.

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about msnbc's debate over the weekend. take a look. >> how do you think the president did? >> well, i think he did bad. you see, denver, colorado was a mile high. now, there's no way to know for sure how many feet that is. but it could be upwards of a million. now, obama is from hawaii, a mile below the earth. so for him it was like being flown two miles in the air and having to give a speech in outer space. >> outer space, about as funny as a four-car garage. and there was more. >> i believe that on the night of the debate, mitt romney and barack obama switched bodies. perhaps. and this is just a theory, perhaps they were exchanging pleasantries backstage and mitt

romney said, man, it's not easy raising five boys and barack said you should try raising two girls and they laughed laughed same time they said, what i'd like to switch places and just like that. >> funny stuff, we love a good joke, of course. mitt romney, well, he tried to get away with the actual debate. it wasn't too funny. and i said it would cause him problems. >> no doubt, maitt romney was a his best tonight but it's not good enough. when you take what he said tonight and compare it to his proposals, to what he has said, to what he's represented, to the ryan plan, it does not match what he said tonight. so how are we going to be impressed with someone that made

a very passionate and a very articulate series of lies tonight? there's been so much focus on the president's debate performance but i continue to believe that governor romney did serious damage to his candidacy that night. he boxed himself in on tax cuts, on health care, on regulation. this was an "snl" worthy performance. if my friends upstairs are listening, they ought to let governor romney audition. look at that. he'd fit right in. i hear he really nails the impersonation of a moderate. "snl" made me laugh but the last laugh will be on governor romney because he will find out on election night that when it comes to medicare and medicaid and social security, when it comes to continuing to give tax cuts to the rich and then telling middle class and poor people, we have to have shared